This might seem like a dumb question to ask but I enjoy finding caches and enjoy having others find caches as well.  It is a big bummer when a cache is not found, and hasn't been found in a long time.  When is the right time to suggest a cache is archived?

We have a cache near our house.  We have tried to find it since last fall.  Everytime we go out we have trouble with muggles but that has not stopped us from trying to find it.  It seems that 9 of the last 10 people have not been able to find it.  I have tried contacting the owner to verify it is still there.  I have reached out about 4 times in the last 3 months with no response.  The owner has moved from the area so it is not the best option for the owner to drive out to check on it.  I have even asked for a few hints to help us find it and we could adopt it to keep it alive. 

Any suggestions? 

~jjrashford

Yes, the first step is to either attempt to contact the owner directly or to post a Needs Maintenance log (which in turn alerts the cache owner via e-mail).

Once you have contacted the CO and gotten no response and/or placed a NM log and have seen no activity (especially when the owner actively logs into the site) you may want to place a Needs Archived log at that time. This will place it on NY Admin's radar and also send yet another e-mail to the owner. It will also officially warn other cachers that they probably should not be wasting their time looking through bushes for no good reason. Be sure to be polite when posting a NA log! There are too many snotty NA logs out there, in my opinon. If you're not comfortable with posting a public NA log, you can e-mail the reviewer directly with the GC code and your assessment of the situation.

I think I know the cache you're talking about -- just a 1.5 difficulty, but since May 6 2009 it has had 8 DNFs and 1 find. it makes you wonder about that one find when it has just one single find in the last year and the rest are DNFs. If it IS this cache, then the cache owner logged on yesterday and has had finds as recently as 4 days ago...not sure why you wouldn't have gotten a response.

SD: If it's the same cache I'm thinking of (and it may not be), I had a previous finder with me last week who also looked around with no luck.

Sure enough, there's your NM log. Yes, LCSM told me that she was pretty sure it was in a bush. Of course she's found thousands since that time, so she may not remember exactly which bush it was

NY Admin just disabled it.

Nothing at all I saw a beachball.... Ok you got me, we placed an easy one today and you wern't the ftf.  I know it was raining and all but this one you would not have needed a canoe like our pennies cache.